Joke of the Day #26

Ann: I'm just looking at this Visual Basic code for the first time. Seems like they declare all variables with the preface "Dim." What does Dim mean? Is it an acronym?
Fran: Does it matter?
Ann: Maybe not, but I thought I'd ask.
Fran: And I thought I'd tell you.
Ann: So if you're going to tell me, then just tell me. What does it stand for?
Fran: Does it matter.
Ann: I don't know-
Together: THIRD BASE!

The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy

Anti-war politicians need catchy slogans. After all, nations since the 20th century have generally thrown all of their might into a war, using propaganda and misleading evidence for launching it.

In case you wondered about the origin of this expression, it was actually a statement by General of the Army Omar Bradley in 1951 referring to an enlargement of the Korean War into Communist China. Full context:

I am under no illusion that our present strategy of using means short of total war to achieve our ends and oppose communism is a guarantee that a world war will not be thrust upon us. But a policy of patience and determination without provoking a world war, while we improve our military power, is one which we believe we must continue to follow…. 

Under present circumstances, we have recommended against enlarging the war from Korea to also include Red China. The course of action often described as a limited war with Red China would increase the risk we are taking by engaging too much of our power in an area that is not the critical strategic prize. 

Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy. 

From testimony before the Senate Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations, May 15, 1951.—Military Situation in the Far East, hearings, 82d Congress, 1st session, part 2, p. 732 (1951).

Omar Bradley official portrait.
Original image from Wikimeda- public domain.

Bradley was not generally an anti-war person.... he had, after all, commanded Twelfth Army Group in its invasion of Germany from the West in 1944-1945. General Bradley had commanded over 1.3 million troops, more than any field commander in US history. He was later the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under a unified Department of Defense. Yet restraint and patience and humility came to him very easily, and he was as unimpressed with MacArthur's nuclear braggadocio as he had been with Patton's antics in Europe. When MacArthur was fired by Truman for insubordination, Bradley fully supported the President.

American history books do not generally discuss all the motivations that were present during the Korean conflict. The United States, before WWII the world's most politically isolated major power, had fought and won WWII with such aplomb that it was thrust into a position of uneasy authority. Suddenly the US had to fight war on a large scale after four years of devastating defense budget cuts, an almost totally demobilized Army, and with no desire to spend the blood and treasure a second time to build one. Under these circumstances, and with a grasp of what it would take to win the Cold War in the long term, Bradley made such an unqualified stand against expansion of the war very eloquently, with compelling reasons.

• The wrong war
• At the time, it was still felt that the Korean War was a feint that was ultimately instigated by Stalin in order to divert the attention of the Western powers so that he could prepare for the invasion of Europe that had been feared since the Berlin Blockade in 1948. The Soviets had largely not demilitarized as the United States had, and the West was pitifully weak without the nuclear advantage. Even so, Allied planners reckoned that if the Red Army mounted an invasion, it would be irresistible. Most plans expected a total defeat in continental Europe, with a long and terrible war to be fought from the British Isles as it had been in the previous war.
• The wrong place
• Getting involved in a land war in Asia is usually a hopeless mess. Korea was particularly bad because its winters were bitterly cold and mountainous terrain made tanks virtually useless. However, although fighting for the democratic South Koreans had merit, carrying the war into Chinese territory to win the Cold War, with hindsight, would have been a bloody catastrophe for the United States and China, and it would have set back the region many years.
• The wrong time
• The United States was at its lowest level of peacetime readiness since before WWII. During the period 1945-1948, demobilization rapidly brought down the size of the US Army to about 600,000 soldiers, thinly spread throughout the world. The United States was not prepared to casually embark on an invasion of China.
• The wrong enemy
• China was clearly a regional power only. They were incapable of harming United States interests except for threats to Formosa and Korea. They chose the easier option. By withdrawing in 1953, and permitting the division of Korea, the United States probably got the best deal it could have gotten, since insisting on full democratization of the peninsula would be fought by the Chinese. Compared to the USSR, the People's Republic was not interested in exporting revolution, and Bradley was prescient in predicting that relations with China would eventually cool down.

After the limited Korean War wound down in 1953, and we started to savor the postwar prosperity, the wisdom that Bradley displayed quickly became appreciated. Jack Kennedy completely aped the expression for a 1960 speech in which he suggested that he would not be drawn into war in Vietnam.

But the most famous use has been in referring to the Iraq War. Now-retired USMC General Anthony Zinni used the phrase in referring to the Iraq War's preparation bungles. John Kerry, later in 2004, used the expression and became the first major American presidential candidate to unequivocally denounce a currently existing state of war involving the United States. This was the single-most controversial issue in US politics at the time, but the American people were largely put off by the unqualified pessimism of Kerry, and he lost badly in the 2004 election.

There is some merit to some of the objections to the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. But, without revealing my opinions either way, Bradley's usage was more unambiguous and less controversial than any of the others.